1,000 Gadgets For Every Man, Woman and Child

If you think it’s tough now, managing a gaggle of digital devices and online profiles and services, you’d better get your multitasking and network administrator skills up to speed. According to MAGNET Beyond, a $17 million worldwide R&D project that wrapped up in June, we’re headed for “personal area networks” containing an infinite array of connected devices.  They envision a near future where everyone has a network of a thousand devices each (?!).

Perhaps a thousand is too generous of an estimate, but thinking about how to easily connect our myriad of gadgets is worthwhile. Alternatively, maybe we should be considering ways to reduce the amounts of objects rather than messing around with connecting lots of separate ones?  Think consolidation of functions -small, all-in-one, multi-use instead of sprawling networks of single function objects.

Roland Piquepaille explains more:

How is this possible? “In the future, there will be hundreds, even as many as a thousand devices in a PN. It may seem an impossible figure, but in the near future the number of personal devices will multiply enormously. One person might have dozens of sensors, monitoring vital signs like heart rate and temperature, and even the electrolytes present in perspiration. And then there are sensors and actuators in the home, including light switches, and more again in cars. People will be able to link with TVs, stoves and spectacles, which could double as a personal TV screen, and even clothing. They will have a home gateway, to manage all their home devices, and a car gateway while driving.”

Let’s admit that our PNs contain a thousand devices? How will be these devices be connected together? “Right now, PNs usually involve fiddling around with Bluetooth settings and crossing your fingers. If it does work, users typically try to complete simple tasks by trial and error, like hunting for photos on your mobile or trying to transfer a tune from your computer to a PDA.”

Roland Piquepaille’s Technology Trends: “1,000-device personal networks in 2017?”